


Summer Interlude

by Alex_deMorra (Ergo_Sum)



Series: Fence Sitter [20]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bottoming, Falling In Love, First Time, M/M, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:04:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9603200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ergo_Sum/pseuds/Alex_deMorra
Summary: Fence Sitter - Chapter 20Twenty-one-year old Micah takes up Dante's offer to stay with him for the rest of summer. They fall in love but when summer's over, so are they.





	1. Chapter 1

The doorbell echoed through the apartment and was followed by silence. Maybe I was too early?

I should have called.

That’s what most people did, right? Called in advance to check when would be a good time to show up? But no. Not me. As soon as Ben dropped me off at the Bart station, leaving me with my bags while he took Cassie’s truck and the coffee kiosk to its next destination, I paid for a travel pass and got on the next train to Glen Park station. From there, I caught the twenty-three to the stop for the zoo and walked from there to the addresswritten on what was once the flip side of a receipt.

The security gate was locked but a nervous lady who carried a cotton mesh bag full of produce and wore Jackie O sunglasses let me follow her into the apartment complex, through the lobby, up three flights of stairs and, once at the landing, she pointed me toward Dante’s place.

I was here.

Just like he’d asked me to be.

For his birthday, no less.

And the entire month.

If I wanted.

I wanted.

Even so, I was only going to come for a few days around his birthday. But when Ben decided he wanted to pick up the August part of the tour (and since he didn’t mind a short detour to drop me on the outskirts of the city), it seemed like the universe wanted to have its way with my schedule. Who was I to say no?

A whole month.

I planned (really) to sleep on his living room couch. That would be cool. If we messed around a few times, that would also be cool. No big.

Who was I kidding? I was dying. I…me…Micah was staying at Dante Te Waero’s apartment for the entire month of August. And did he have roommates? No. He’d be the last person I said good night to thirty-one times in a row.

But he didn’t answer the door.

_Fuck._

The nervous lady poked her head out of her apartment (her sunglasses were still perched on her head and pulled the sides of her long hair back). She offered me a cup of something while I waited. “I have Postum,” she said. “It’s like drinking coffee but you won’t get all the jitters.”

I consumed a wide variety in the food and drink category but when something is described with _it’s like_ and they mention an _actual_ item, I take it as my cue to actively avoid the suggestion. “No thanks,” I said. “I’ll just take a walk and come back in a bit.”

“Suit yourself. He might be surfing. If so, it won’t be too long before he’s back.”

Before I could answer, she retreated; the closing of her door was quickly followed by the twisting of a deadbolt and the slide of a chain link latch — in other words, the unmistakable sounds of isolation.

I contemplated whether I could leave my bags while I took off for a bit. My surroundings weren’t what I imagined for a San Francisco apartment. Blue speckled terrazzo floors with strips of brass stays. Metal doors painted white. Smooth stucco walls that were slightly lighter than the background color of the floor. The combination shouldn’t have worked; the fact that it did seemed more like a happy accident than anything else.

Who didn’t like a happy accident?

A ding sounded from the wall twenty feet behind me.The first thing out of the elevator was the green-rimmed beak of Dante’s favorite shortboard. At six feet, it was a few inches shorter than he was. I didn’t know much about surfing but this one was supposed to be speedy or maneuverable. We went together (there were five of us) to pick it up for the first time, he showed off the four side fins (in addition to the main one) and bragged that it would allow him to _shred_.

And while that memory was a pleasant one, it was catching sight of the guy carrying the board that made me happy.

He was in a wetsuit.

Well, half a wetsuit since the top part had been folded down past his waist. Two black neoprene sleeves dangled on the outside of each of his calves. His skin, deep golden brown and goose pimpled, was speckled with sand, except for his bare feet which seemed to have been rinsed off.

He beamed when he saw me. “You’re here! Why didn’t you tell me you could come earlier? I would have come to get you at the station.”

“It’s all good,” I told him. “I got to take a trip on BART.”

There was a single key that hung from a chain around his neck. It floated over his breastbone until he took it off to open his front door. “Did you get the pass like I told you?”

“Yeah, yeah - I did. I got one for the month,” I said and watched a drop of water that fell from his hair onto the flat of his shoulder. “Just like you said,” I added, my voice drifted off as I followed him into his apartment.

His. Studio. Apartment.

His-no-separate-living-room apartment.

His apartment with a long hallway that ended in three window panes that took up the breadth of the wall. Just under the window was a puffy, u-shaped sectional couch that, like the windows, took up the length of the far wall. And if anyone who sat down would look directly at a queen-sized bed strewn with dark red sheets and no blankets to speak of. The sleeping area became quasi-private thanks to the wall shared by the left-hand side of the hallway.

I hardly noticed when Dante took my bag from out of my hand, set it down at the foot of the bed, and gave me the tour of the rest of the place. The kitchen was accessible via 2 archways — one into the hallway and one into the not-living-room. Convenient, I supposed, for running very small laps. Just beyond it and just on this side of his front door was the bathroom, within which he turned on the shower and waved me in.

I was gobsmacked by the implication. _Hello. Let’s shower._ It would be the fastest transition from greeting to getting busy in the history of my life.

But that’s not what he was up to.

“What the hell?” I exclaimed, the words reverberated around the tiles that went from floor to the skylit ceiling. That wasn’t the cause of my surprise. No, that was due to the angled surfboard storage along one side of the wall. I couldn’t tell whether it was press-fit or drilled into the wall but either way, it wasn’t what I expected to see. “Is your landlord okay with this?”

“Sure. But…I’m the landlord,” he said and continued rinsing his board in the shower. When all was sand-free, he stepped out and put the board on the top shelf of the rack and did that Houdini trick of exchanging his wetsuit for a towel wrapped around his waist while remaining fully covered.

“Wait…what?”

“I’m the apartment manager — this place plus a few bucks in exchange for rent. It’s why I had to come home the other weekend,” explained Dante. I followed him back out of the bathroom and down a short hall to stand in the middle of the bright room. I looked out the picture windows that overlooked the dunes across the street and the ocean behind them because I assumed (wrongly, as it turned out) that as he continued to explain his work situation, he also got dressed.“It’s perfect. I work from home, it’s flexible enough for school, and I can surf every day. Want some water?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He filled two pint glasses from a filtering jug in the fridge, handed one to me, and sipped on the other.

I asked him, “So…um…you just going to walk around with a towel on …or…?”

“Well, how am I supposed to get dressed when I don’t know what we’re going to do next?” He leaned against the wall with his legs loosely crossed at the ankle and, with the way he preened, with his big ass smile, his teasing brown eyes, could have been a Cheshire Cat. He had one-hundred-percent confidence in himself and I suppose by extension, in me. Not about anything in particular, mind you. Not that I knew of. Just confident.

He looked me up and down before he answered, “Do you _want_ me to get dressed?”

“Well, it’s considered customary, you know? Especially when someone has never seen your place and all. I mean, have some manners…” I plopped against the wall right next to him. Not too close. Not so much that he wouldn’t…or I wouldn’t…oh, who was I fooling? No one. That’s who. Definitely not him since he rolled to one shoulder and was now facing me.

My face was uncomfortably warm. This seemed to please him. It was really hard to think when he stood so close. I was distracted by the crystal clear droplets of water that fell haphazardly from his hair onto his skin where it continued in a unique path down some part of his body that could — and perhaps should — be followed by my tongue.

He inched closer and another drop fell from the curved, black spike of his hair onto the curl of his ear. Before it reached the lobe, it fell with a silent _plink_ to the very top of his chest where it’s progress was hampered by the valley of his collarbone. I imaged the spec of water heating to body temperature as it pooled with other drops fortunate enough to have the same fate. In an instant, with one sip, they could be inside me.

“So, it bothers you then?” he asked and got closer still. The tides of his breath warmed and cooled me in equal measures but his eyes burned me.

“No, it’s just…kinda…” _…hot, sexy, mind-blowing, un-fucking-believable…_ I couldn’t finish the sentence out loud.

But, also, I could no longer think. Because he leaned into me. He brushed the tip of his nose against my cheek and up to my temple “Kinda what?” he whispered.

I cleared my throat and said, “Um…ah…kinda hard to…go somewhere…like…we’re going somewhere, right?” The little kisses he placed on the flap of my ear gave me goose bumps.

“Of course. Where do you want to go?” he asked.

My head rested against the wall behind me. The movement acted as an invitation for Dante to sweep his fingers over the tendons of my neck while he continued to do…whatever he was doing to my ear. 

“Where…er…do you…recommend?” The chills he sent down my spine cracked my voice.

He murmured, “I think…food first. Are you hungry? You must be hungry.”

“Oh, god yes. I’m starving.”

His hands held my face; he looked straight at me and bent in to put his lips on mine. It was soft (at first) a barely there touch with his lower lip just inside the seam of my mouth. The next time he spoke, he stayed there, the shape of his lips forming consonants and vowels brushed against me, “Then I need to feed you, don’t I? I think we should go to Chinatown.”

“Chinatown?”

“Mmm. I don’t think you’ve seen anything like it,” he said and kissed me harder. I could taste the edge of cold from the refrigerator water on his tongue and wondered if he could taste the same on mine. “It’s always busy. [Kiss] Sidewalks are three or four people deep. [Kiss] Ducks and pork sides in the window. [Kiss] At night all you see are red and yellow lights above shops and restaurants.”

My hand teased the twist of his towel and played alternately with the loops of the terrycloth and his damp skin. In my other hand — like his other hand — was a glass of half-drunk water, awkwardly held, with nowhere to put it down. Not without leaving his side, at any rate. “But it isn’t close to nighttime yet,” I mewled. “Have you had breakfast yet? I could go for some breakfast.”

He answered with a passionate, wet, open-mouthed kiss that, as it went on, had me pressed harder and harder into the wall behind me. I could feel him getting hard. Could he feel me do the same? “I’ll make you a breakfast. Would that be okay?”

“Um, I don’t know.” My protest was weak. “If we don’t leave, we might never get out of here.”

“But we must eat. After all… [Kiss] there are things we have to do. [Kiss] Things you have to see. [Kiss] Things I have to show you. Yes [Kiss], let’s get ready to go.” And as he said it, he lifted the water glass from my hand and placed it, along with his, on the kitchen countertop just on the other side of the archway. Then he rushed back to pick up where we left off — pulling the hem of my shirt out of my pants.

My arms flew around his shoulders automatically. It was like they knew they belonged there. I couldn’t decide whether that made them smarter than the rest of me. Those same arms flew up to release my shirt when he lifted it over my head and wrapped around him on their way back down.

“So, this is us getting ready to go?”

“ _I’m_ getting ready to go. Aren’t _you_ getting ready to go?” He unlatched my belt buckle and felt for the top of my zipper but on finding button-fly, he flicked open the top and pulled the flaps away from each other. _Pop, pop, pop, pop_. Each soft sound brought incremental relief. His hand, warm and pliant, ran down the length of me.

_Oh, god._

He kissed me again.

And palmed me.

He kissed me and he palmed me and he pushed his chest against mine, the under flesh of his pecs conformed to the outward curve of mine, and he mewled a growling, purring, rumbling sound that vibrated against my lips and, from there skittered across my skin to the other side of my neck, down my back, along each leg, where it settled into the base of each heel and caused me to go on my tip-toes.

My hands, now wet from twisting in his hair, gripped down (more out of instinct than anything else) and released several drips that traveled over the dry skin of my wrist and forearms.

His hands, in the meantime, found their way into my waistband and slid from the front to the back where they gripped my ass and, perhaps inadvertently, shoved my underwear down to the top of my thighs.

They didn’t stay there. He thumbed the fabric from the top, pushed down, caught the motion with the inside of his knee and managed to bring them completely to the floor and followed by — and I had never experienced this before — lifting me. My legs were compelled to fold around him and because he again pressed me against the wall, his hands were largely free to roam at will.

Which they did. They roamed my sides, my hips, my ass…then… _there_. “Have you ever, Micah?” Dante asked, his meaning obvious. He wanted to know if I’d ever let someone fuck me. If I liked it. And by extension, would I let him try?

“With Danny,” I responded. As far as answers go, it wasn’t one that was helpful. How could I tell him about _that_ , about why I had so much emotion tied to that particular act. And how it was intermittent. Like one time I’d was fine and another time I was anything but. Or about how long it took for me to let Danny try in the first place. Yes. That’s how to tell him. “But, Dante…it took me a long time to get there.”

Emotions transformed his face into something softer, into something more concerned. “I’ll do whatever you want. Can I touch you? Do you like it? I want you to like what I do.”

“Ask me tomorrow,” I told him. _Yes_ , I thought, pleased with myself for making that decision. _When in doubt, postpone._ The words sparked a memory of something he said some weeks ago. “Dante,” I posed between resumed kisses. He supported my full weight to lift me from the wall, to turn, and to walk — far more easily than I could have — to his delightful, messy, and very welcoming bed where he fell to his knees and dropped me in slow motion onto my back. “Do you remember what you said to me?”

“Have I not said many things to you?”

“Last time we were together. In the tent. You said it right after the first time you kissed me.” I neglected to add, because I felt it was redundant, that it was also right before he kissed me again.

“Hm. Let me think,” he said and thought his thoughts right down my body all while he did wonderful things to places I now considered wonderful as well. Then he remembered, climbed back up to hover over me, and asked, “Was it … _Tudo o que acontece uma vez nunca pode acontecer novamente. Mas tudo o que acontece duas vezes certamente acontecerá uma terceira vez.”_

“Yes,” I exclaimed, “You promised to tell me what it meant.”

“I did? Now, why would I do something like that when you should have remembered all on your own.”

I pinched his nose. “You think I’m going to remember all that?”

“Yes,” he said, moved to lay next to me, and leaned on one elbow with the other free to draw long, looping patterns to whatever skin was available within arm’s reach. 

“Why?”

“Because I said it. That’s why,” he drawled, his smile was wide and, having been recently licked, wet. I traced the shine with my finger and, once it was gone, outlined the shape of his lips.  “I can’t get that night out of my head. I’ve been thinking about how it would be with just us. What about you? That’s why you came here, right?”

My hackles went up. Maybe because it was true. But that wasn’t the only reason. I wouldn’t have done this for just anyone. “Dante,” I explained, “You know I didn’t just come here to fuck you, right?”

“No?”

“No. I came here because you invited me. And…well…[deep breath]…because I missed you.”

“You missed me?” he asked, sounded incredulous.

“Yeah.”

“You actually _missed_ me?” This time when he asked, he was clear he thought he was being funny. Ha, ha.

I rolled my eyes and stuck with the thought, “Yeah.”

“What have I done to deserve such an honor?” he teased.

“If you’re going to be a shit about it, I take it back.”

“No! No, no, no. I’m kidding. I’m just kidding,” Dante chuckled, leaned back over me again, and wrapped his hands around my wrists to keep me from getting up. “I missed you, too. And I’m glad you’re here. Don’t doubt it, okay?”

A moment passed between us. The room subsided. It was just us. No one else. Nothing else. But I still wanted to know what he whispered to me in the tent. It was spoken low so that Tiffany couldn’t have heard it. Whatever it was, it still felt relevant. “Tell me what it means, Dante. That quote.”

When his forehead came to rest on mine, it pressed against something unseen, something that tingled gently and proceeded to radiate over my face and over the plates of my skull. I felt open. Exposed. I didn’t ask to feel so vulnerable. I didn’t want it. Not like this. Not ever. It was too much.

But I didn’t want to shut it down either.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Dante said, “It’s from Paulo Coelho. Do you know him?” He smiled when I shook my head. “Here’s what it means: Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”

“Oh,” I sighed. “That’s really…perfect.”

“Yeah?” Dante rubbed the tip of his nose against mine, his one word, a hot exhale against my lips and a precursor to further contact. His engagement of my mouth prevented my assent in word form. So I moaned and hoped he understood.

I liked that he expressed the thought weeks ago — when the _everything_ at the time was a kiss — and that he didn’t wait until now — or whatever coincidence of time and place that allowed this second _everything_ — call it having sex or getting off or penetration or fucking or making love or sharing intimacies —to happen.

The timing of what he said, and what he meant by it, let me know that he’d thought about this _everything_ to happen between us. It was premeditated. He wanted it. So it was okay for me to want it, too.

A new energy coursed through me — one that wasn’t familiar. One that had a mind of its own. One that led to my flipping Dante to his back, to my pinning him down, to my settling between his legs, to my fucking him with all I had.

There was no doubt.

No question.

No hesitation.

Whatever else this _everything_ was, it was on.


	2. Chapter 2

One week.

That’s how long it took for me to change my mind.

The fact that this occurred on Dante’s birthday was a coincidence.

Really.

The day started (as all of his days started) with an alarm set to go off twenty minutes before dawn. Soon, he would walk over the dunes to the beach with high waves and rip currents that he could navigate but I couldn’t. Before he did that, he had to get up and do things. One of them involved squeezing into black neoprene.

He didn’t need me for that.

So, when he vacated the bed, I shifted over, nestled in the warmth he left there, and hugged his pillow. By the time I had almost drifted back asleep, he bent over me (his curls tickled my ear) and told me in his low voice that crackled with the morning, “I want you to stay just like this so I can join you when I get back.”

“When are you back?” I mumbled, aware that I it sounded like a single word. _Whenrubak?_ It was a good word.

Contrary to his wishes, I got up, cleaned the place up, and made breakfast while he showered. After that — and without him realizing that he was my assignment — we went sightseeing. All I had to do was keep him occupied.

No.

First, I had to get him out of the house. This was more difficult than I would have thought since he had strong opinions on returning to bed. Nevertheless, I succeeded.

Then, I had to manage a surreptitious handing off of keys to Tiffany, who led the charge in having her way with his place for the purpose of organizing a surprise dinner party. My payment, of sorts, was a list of things to do around the city.

Hence, the sightseeing.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny. Not too hot. Not too many people on MUNI. The first few items on the list were easy to get to. All in all, a happy, mellow sort of day.

Until we got to the botanical gardens— and specifically to the cloud forest collection — whereupon Dante transformed into the nerdiest, bonafide science fiend over all things that expirated oxygen and of the surrounding fauna that required it. This was meant in the nicest possible way. The chill guy was chill no longer. He was snatched by an animated, professor-type who swept me from plant to plant with a deep need to educate me — assertively, I might add — on how each one contributed to an ecosystem uniquely suited to high altitude, foggy environments.

Like, if I didn’t know this, I might actually die.

Because…air.

“Take this Giant Groundsel,” he explained and pointed out a prehistoric looking plant easily twice my height with leaves as long as my arm and flower bunches bigger than my head, “A version of this is found all over the world but it is usually just a small wildflower. A foot tall, something like that. They are just small little thing related to daisies. Funny, right? The individual flower looks more like a mini daffodil but no…it’s related to daisies. Anyhow, this one is an example of what can happen when a species has to struggle for sunlight. The stalk has turned into something woody and big. See, this one now has a trunk six feet in diameter. Next year, it’ll be bigger than me. Crazy, no?”

Families with small children gathered close to hear him. “This fuchsia…I bet you didn’t know…it has berries that make really good jam. When the Europeans found this, they took it home and tried to grow it in glasshouses. That doesn’t sound so impressive like this but at the time, people in England would build glass conservatories to their houses in order to grow plants like this. Can you imagine? Building a whole room in your house to bring in a plant that isn’t native to your country. Not for food but just because it was beautiful. I don’t think this sort of thing would happen today. Anyhow, it’s good for hummingbirds. Look, there’s one.”

He pointed out a sparkling little bird hovering next to a flower. It had ruby red feathers around it’s head, emerald ones along its wings and back, and smoky, glistening white along the long stripe of its belly. “This one is a male because of the red crown and throat. It’s called Anna’s Hummingbird and it is very common around here. If it stopped moving for a second, you’d see that it’s the size of a ping pong ball. So tiny, even for a hummingbird. Like bees, though, these guys are important pollinators and pest controllers. So it’s good to see him looking so good, huh?”

Plant by plant, bug by bug, bird by bird, child by child, we made it through the gardens and by the time we were done, I needed a nap.

Not that I would get one.

Five minutes ago I got the text that told me it was time to head back to his apartment.

And I had a six-foot-something issue.

Dante — who was energized by his afternoon of presenting information about birds, bees, and the like — was, like me, ready to lie down. But for completely different reasons.

We walked hand-in-hand to Lincoln and 19th to catch the 29 and the entire way, he peppered my neck with little kisses and planted ideas of what he wanted to do _the very moment_ we got home. No, not home. The elevator. Had I ever pressed the _Stop_ button? No, he hadn’t either.

But it was his birthday.

A perfect day for it.

I groaned inwardly when I imagined the twenty people who waited inside at his house, and tried to figure out how I might calm my now raging hard-on. Never mind the one he had (it was considerable). I stood in front of him, facing him to hide our mutual arousal from surrounding people. To distract him, I brought up the (non-existing) plans to meet his friends for drinks later. I, the calendar carrying future lawyer of America, presented a (fictitious) timeline for the evening. For example, I told him, “We need to get home in the next half-an-hour, shower up — we’ve got less than five minutes each — and then we have to get going.”

“Mmm, a shower yes,” he purred, intentionally mistaking my intended distraction as an invitation. “If I got on my knees for you, would you wash my hair? I love that…so nice.”

On the bus, he gave me the seat by the window so that we could lean over against my shoulder to watch the scenery go by. And finger the outside seam of my jeans. I had to cover my crotch with my jacket but once again, that just gave him the idea to snuggle closer and start tracing a different part of my jeans. 

_Oh jeez._

Any other time, any other moment and I would be pleased with this development. I can’t say that I’d ever been in quite this position before and all of a sudden all of those film and TV clips where one of a couple would insist in _later_ while the other continued to simply persist. I could now honestly say that an amorous Dante was not a Dante to be trifled with. He was single-minded, each look and touch and word designed to seduce me. Public transport be damned.

I mentally did the walk from the bus stop to his home. Where were the nooks or places to hide where I could quickly get the two of us off before we got home? There was nothing.Just ten and a half blocks of houses whose sides butted up against each other and a wide-open park that was part of an elementary school, which…no. Even on a Saturday.

We arrived at our stop: Sunset and Wawona and descended to a few tsks and leers and giggles. From here, there was a half-a-mile walk to the apartment. I could see no other pedestrians.The bus drove away and Dante promptly grabbed me in a hug, lifted me by the two hands on my ass, and kissed me with so much passion it took my breath away. I couldn’t help but to wrap my legs around him, to grab a hunk of his hair, and to return his kiss.

Surprise party? What surprise party?

The phone vibrated in my pocket with what was, no doubt, a check-in message. _Where are you?_ And from someone else. _What’s your ETA?_

“Dante, we need to get home.”

“Yes,” he panted.

“To get ready to go.”

“To shower,” he clarified. “I’m going to blow you and then you’re going to fuck me and then you’re going to blow me and then we’ll get ready to go.”

_Fuck._

I wondered if I should just tell him. _Dude, there are over twenty of your closest San Francisco friends waiting for us in your apartment_.

I tried another tack. “Dante, what’s got you so worked up, huh?”

“You do,” he declared and wrapped around my waist to begin the stroll home. I rolled my eyes in disbelief and subtly increased the length and speed of each step. Dante’s step fell in with mine, though he kept the anticipatory glint in his eye and continued to manhandle me and provide suggestive commentary the entire way.

One block from home and the realization that we were headed into an awkward homecoming only got more intense. He reached around me when he unlocked the metal security gate and pressed against me so I could feel the length of his dick in the crack of my ass.

_The garage._

I grabbed his hand and went to open the door connecting the lobby to the garage but when I tried to turn it, it was locked.

“What are you doing, Micah?”

I blurted, “I can’t wait.”

“But it’s just upstairs,” he said and pulled my hand toward the elevator.

“No,” I said too loudly. My mind raced trying to figure out how to handle this. “Dante, if we go upstairs in the state we are now, we are never going to get out of here.”

“So what?”

“Dude, I promised Tiffany that I’d get you there at six and, as it is now, we’ve got less than ten minutes to get in and out of here.”

He took a step closer to pin me to the wall, flashed an evil grin. “We’ll take a taxi.”

“I’ve already considered that.”

“Let them wait, Micah.” He nuzzled my neck in that spot halfway between my ear and my collarbone, the one that gave me a full body shiver. “It’s my birthday, no? I think they’ll understand a small delay.”

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit._

“I will give you anything if we do this my way right now.”

He pulled back with his eyebrows raised. “Anything?”

“Yeah. Anything. What do you want?”

With a small shake of his head, he smiled and said, “No, you don’t want to ask. I’m…no.”

“You want to fuck me.”

Dante’s eyes flashed and his pupil’s dilated. He didn’t have to say _yes_ for me to know that was what he was thinking.

“I want you to,” I continued, surprising myself. “Do you want that?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” I said. Because I was.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“No pressure.”

“Dude, open the fucking door.”

He scrambled to get the keys back out of his front pocket. It didn’t escape my notice that his hands shook while unlocked the door and when it opened, we whipped inside and flipped the lock again from the inside. We rushed to the back of the space and I pushed him against the concrete wall, hastily undid his fly. I took his pants down when I fell to my knees and immediately took him into my mouth.

The tip of his dick was salty and slick and beyond ready to go. I slurped him up. This was going to be fast and loud and messy. Both of my hands were engaged: one holding the base of his shaft, the other to get myself out of my pants as possible (I wasn’t going to last long). His length and girth, while in perfect proportion, were a challenge. I had almost figured out how to manage but I hadn’t ever gone so quickly before. Or so urgently.

I looked up. His head was against the back wall, his chin pointed to the ceiling and his groan was…oh god, it was magic. Dante's hands threaded lightly in my hair until I applied rapid taps with my tongue to that sensitive v where his foreskin attached. He responded by gripping the hair on the front of my head like he couldn’t handle what I was doing or (more likely) wouldn’t be able to stand it if I stopped. When he spewed words in Portuguese, I knew he was close.

“ _Mais forte.”_ He wanted me to go harder so I pulled the muscles of my lips tighter and worked him more deeply with my tongue.

“ _Mais fundo.”_ Deeper. My hand stroked him and extended the reach of my mouth which already had him dripping with saliva. I would twist my head in one direction, my fist in the other.

“ _Sua boca é tão gostoso._ ” He thinks my mouth is sexy or fuckable or naughty or something like that. In truth, I hardly thought my mouth could compare to his mind. The guy had such a dirty mind. I loved it. Bend him over a couch, a chair, the open window? Yes, in a heartbeat. Swallow my cum? Every drop. Always. Like it was some elixir. Did I want to wear lace panties or fist him or tie him up or lick his ass? “Bring it,” he said.

“ _Eu amo como você chupa meu role._ ” He loved how I sucked his dick. Fine by me. I loved sucking his dick. Even when the phone in my front pocket buzzed incessantly. I’m sure that the texts read something like _I saw you walk up. Where are you?_ Or from Tiffany: _Should I meet you by the elevator with this handy extra large box of baby wipes you forgot to put in the drawer?_

His hips pulsed in small, rapid movements. Twice I thought he was going to cum and twice I was wrong. But this time he said, “ _Eu estou gozando_ _,_ ” right before he came in my mouth. I gripped the back of his thighs with my forearm and held him close to my body while my lips stayed firm his dick and my throat relaxed to swallow his orgasm.

I was two seconds from spilling all over the floor when he pulled me up and slammed me against the wall to swap positions. He didn’t bother with any subtleties. No teasing my slit, no tonguing my glans. He swallowed me up — strong and steady — and sucked hard using only his mouth (his hands had already pinned mine to the wall behind me). It took less than a minute before I let go and released into his mouth.

My pulse pleasantly pounded its way around my body. I could feel it in my legs, my arms, my crotch, my head. His nose was still buried in my pubes and his lips were stretched around my dick when he looked up with this expression of innocent hedonism. _Boom_ , went my heart. And when he pulled off, his spit-slick lips glistened against the light that came in through the three dusty plexiglass windows from the opposite side of the garage. 

I had to kiss him. 

So I did.

We stood up, tucked in, and left the garage as locked and cum-free as it was before we’d arrived. Dante continued to pet me and hold me and kiss me. He continued to do so as we crossed the lobby, all through the three-story ride up the elevator and down the hall to his front door (the opposite of which I was grateful was silent). 

I had tried to respond to the unread texts on the sly. I attempted to select the auto-text response for _I’m on my way,_ ended up sending the one for _hello, how are you_ and inadvertently called so that when they picked up they got an earful of Dante’s intentions as muted by the pocket of a worn set of jeans. 

At last, we were in front of his apartment door. We were dressed and upright and only slightly flushed. He took his keys out of his pocket and I took them from him and made a (not at all deliberate) noisy mess of opening the door. It unlocked with a _snick_ and I moved to the side so that he’d be the first in.

Dante opened the door to a spray of confetti and glitter and a room full of people who shouted, “Surprise!” 

He put his hand on his chest in genuine surprise and bent over, laughing, to catch his breath before he went around the apartment to be embraced by everyone who had come to celebrate. 

Tiffany was first (of course) to find me. She searched my eyes with hers, popped her eyebrows up, and licked the side of as if to indicate that it wasn’t her but me who needed to clean up. I immediately did the same and wiped the side of my mouth with my finger, not feeling what she implied might have been here. She pursed her lips together and giggled. “Uh huh,” she said, “I knew I could count on you to take your job seriously.”

What could I say to that?

Nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

“What do you mean you haven’t seen the photo yet?” asked Tiffany. She lifted off the back of the couch to lean forward, eyebrows lifted with incredulity, presumably because I was supposed to…what…have come here, said hello and then demanded to see a photo I’d heard the existence of? The night was down to the last handful of people. Half of them sat on the couch and, even though there was plenty of room for all of us to fit there, the other half sat on the floor around the two wooden, wineglass-laden cubes that Dante called his coffee table.

Tiffany continued, “Dante, sweetie. You have to show him. It’s so lovely.” To see her in actual clothes — as opposed to Elizabethan garb — and speaking in California English was disconcerting. The real world seemed to dull her around the edges. I preferred the other version. To Dante, she was just Tiffany. At any rate, he did as she asked and walked to his dresser drawer where it pulled out a stack of perhaps twenty photos, shuffled to find the right one, and he returned to settle on the floor next to me with his back against the base of the couch.

“That’s the one,” pointed out Tiffany who had leaned over my shoulder and, upon catching a look from Dante that I couldn’t see, promptly leaned back to chat with her date and the two people who sat on the floor opposite us.

The picture  was one from high school. I recognized the lawn that we sat on — it would have been the one closest to the block of senior lockers. Dominick and Eliyah sat with their knees propped up, arms slung over each other’s neck and — as the only ones aware that a photo was being taken — directed their hammed up smiles toward the camera. Just next to them and off to the right, Mariah had wrapped herself around the back of a still pudgy Júnior whose attention was on something (or someone?) in the distance. 

Dante and I sat behind the rest of them, in deep conversation, oblivious to the rest of the world. Laura Nunez (his girlfriend at the time) sat on the other side of him and played absentmindedly with his hand, which was planted in the grass. He was in…what did we call it…a drug rug? A carpet? It was an over his head sort of thing with stripes of blue, purple, black and beige with the huge trapezoid pocket in front that was easily big enough for both of his hands and more. He didn’t so much wear it as he lived in it. 

I sat with my far knee pointing up, my elbow on it like I could block anyone from that side. And my other leg was bent, knee pointed (and almost touching) his hip with my other hand on the ground behind me. My eyes were wide, my mouth slightly open, my jaw tilted up and I could have been doting on his every word. The look on my face was nothing short of adoring. I was so obviously into him. My body language, my everything. We sat like that a lot. And when we talked, he always gave me his complete attention. It was how he made me feel important.

“Can I see?” asked Carla. My eyes lifted to see her smiling with her hand held out. I handed her the photo and she gushed, “Oh, my god. You guys are so little! How old were you?”

Dante answered her, “I think that was my junior year so…sixteen, I guess? It was Micah’s first year.”

“How old are you here, Micah?” she asked.

“Fourteen.”

Carla continued, “The two of you look so intense. What were you talking about?”

I shrugged my shoulders, clueless either to the day or the topic and looked at Dante whose right eyebrow had quirked up in amusement. He maneuvered himself closer to snake his right hand behind my back and prop his chin on my shoulder. “You do,” he said, “Of course, you do. Carla, turn it around and show it to us again.” 

I looked in vain for details I hadn’t seen the first time. Nothing stood out beyond the way I gazed at him. I shook my head and said, “You’re going to have to tell me.”

“I’ll give you a hint, he said.”

“A hint?”

“It was right before Christmas break.”

Nothing. I didn’t remember. 

“You were my savior that year.”

Nope. My memory was not being jogged.

“Okay, I’ll tell the story,” he addressed the room, “So this guy [he nudged me] was so quiet. He’d come and go like a little mouse and only hang out with us after one of us would drag him out of the library or something. The only place he was himself was when we got him in the roda. Then he was this totally crazy, fearless guy. As soon as the roda was over, he’d go back to being this super quiet, mysterious guy. We took bets to see if we could get him to say more than a sentence at a time but none of us could. Oh, my god — it was hard work.”

“Anyway. So, there was this drug bust at school. They found some stuff in some rich kid’s locker. Andy. That was his name. I didn’t know the guy except in passing.”

The introduction triggered the memory. Of course, I knew this story but had never heard Dante’s version before.

“So this guy Andy thought he’d get out of trouble if he pinned the whole thing on someone else. He chose me — thought I looked the part or something. So I was searched and they didn’t find anything. Then the principal made me get tested, which sucked, but it showed I was clean.”

“That’s awful,” Carla sympathized.

“Yeah. But that wasn’t the end of it. Andy got his friends to say that they saw me smoking out on campus. Plus he made up some stuff about me bragging about how I cheated the drug test. The principal doesn’t call bullshit. He believes this Andy kid. And now, he doesn’t want me to just take a urine test, he wants me to go in and get a blood test. Well, you know how I hate needles,” he said.

Maybe they didn’t know but I knew. The guy was master of calm until he needed a jab of something. He famously freaked out after he got a tetanus shot and sulked for days.

“So here’s the scene. I got called into the office and _Tia_ was there — she’d been waiting for me when I got there. She was steaming mad. _Steaming._ I’m telling you, this is not someone you want mad at you ever. But I was pissed, too. I’d already given them what they wanted and they didn’t believe me. And the principal was saying that if I didn’t get the test, I’d get suspended and it would go on my permanent record. We’re there for ages battling it out.”

“In the meantime, Micah figured out what was going down in the principal's office and…oh, my god…they stormed the office,” he laughed, “It was total chaos. There was one student in the vice principal's office claiming that Micah sold him drugs. Someone else was in the counselor’s office complaining that the kid in the VP’s office sold her some drugs. The lobby was filled up with kids who had all blamed each other for dealing drugs that didn’t exist. ”

“By the time _Tia_ and I were leaving the principal’s office, the parents started to arrive. Most of them were somewhere between pissed off and confused. And because there were so many of them, the teachers and coaches were pulled into the office to try to calm down the situation. All these parents were yelling at the principal about how he must have made some huge mistake because their kids would _never_ do what they were being accused of.I swear, the dude just stepped into his worst nightmare; it was written all over his face,” Dante shook his and continued his story.

“So, _Tia_ spots Dominick — that’s this guy here [he pointed to the photo] — in the counselor’s office and because she’s his foster mom, she’s got to stay to sort out his shit rather than taking me to the clinic. Then Eliyah came in…he was another one of _Tia’s_ foster kids. I’m here to tell you, she was already going to fly off the handle with me but after seeing Dom and Eliyah, I had never seen her like that before and definitely haven’t since then. Plus, she didn’t even know what to do about Micah, who wasn’t a foster kid but was someone that came to our group through my _tio_ so she couldn’t just leave him there by himself.”

I hadn’t thought about that day in ages. We had to keep Júnior out of the whole thing (even though he helped to plan it) because he had a legit drug record. The others — and there wasn’t a single one amongst us who wasn’t scared shitless of the repercussions if this went south — were bound together by our shared disdain for dick wad extraordinaire, Andy Carruthers. 

Except me. 

I was there for Dante, who currently sat on my left while he ran his fingers through my hair, kissed me on my temple, and went on, “So there we all were. It was the last few days of school before Christmas break. Everyone wanted to be out shopping for presents or preparing for meals or anywhere but where they were, dealing with teenagers. Finally, Micah — this quiet, little mouse — turned into this big bear. He got up on a chair with this manila envelope — his hands and knees were shaking so bad I could see it — and announced in this big voice that he _documented_ the whole story and if the school insisted on pursuing false charge based on discrimination, the local papers were going to hear about it.”

“What? Seriously,” asked Carla, addressing me. “You did _not_ do that when you were fourteen.”

“I did,” I admitted. “It has been my best act of civil disobedience to date.” 

Dante snorted. 

Eddy, the guy who was Tiffany’s date for the evening, asked, “What happened next?”

“It was dead quiet for like…a minute. Then one of the super alpha-type parents…I didn’t even know who their kid was…demanded that the principal let everyone go. Then some other parent…some hippie type…demands just as loudly that they’ll fight on behalf of the students. The cops got called and sent everyone on their way.”

“So you didn’t have to take the test?”

“Oh, I definitely had to take the blood test. Micah got suspended. A ton of the students got grounded. But after we left, the principal went off — like not cool went off — and someone recorded it. The entire story was printed up in the local paper. A few weeks later, I got my apology and, by spring, we had a new principal. All of that to say…this photo was the day Micah came back after being suspended. I wanted him to tell me how he made it happen.”

“Did he?” asked Carla.

“Oh, hell no. He’s a steel trap. He wouldn’t tell me anything,” Dante said, the long, slow strokes of his hand over my back and sides turned to something more teasing. He concluded, “In the end just had to be happy with the rumors that came my way.” 

I turned my head to find myself nose-to-nose with him and asked, “Are you complaining?”

“Yes,” Dante scolded and gave me a kiss that melted my lips. His hand created a gap between my pants and my shirt and shamelessly played with the skin he found there. He went on, “Of course, I’m complaining. You want more details?”

“You don’t have any stinking details,” I postured and readied myself with side eye and a block insufficient for the tackle that ended with his tongue in my mouth and, in a blatant disregard for guests his other arm swept around me to pull me closer at the waist while he leaned in to tip me backwards with another kiss, this one more aggressive than the last. My arms automatically wrapped around his neck (they do this), my eyes closed, and my lips returned his kiss as passionately as I would have if we were alone.

Behind me, Tiffany announced, “Welp, I think that’s the end of our evening. Let’s leave these two love birds to figure out the rest of their night.”

I waved vaguely in the direction of the sound of items gathered up and feet that shuffled out the door while Dante scrambled over me, uninterrupted, to trap me between the couch and the coffee table while he smothered me with his affection.


	4. Chapter 4

“Gorgeous man,” he breathed between the moment he unfastened the middle button of my shirt and the next when he licked the flesh he’d just uncovered. 

Each subsequent day of my visit with Dante was more intense than the last. It revealed quirks I didn’t know of, desire I’d only dreamed of, and affection I’d never tire of. It was flattering. And overwhelming. And sincere and sexy and sweet and seductive in a way that I had never experienced before. It felt like we were doing something impossible.

That said, we were careful. Neither of us mentioned what would happen after August. Who knew? Maybe that’s why it worked. Because the end was already fixed, there was nothing we could do about it. And, as such, I wouldn’t think of it now. 

Not when Dante had shucked off my clothes.

Not when I was streaked with cool streaks left by a busy mouth. 

Not when his bare feet flexed against the arches of mine or when his elbows planted on the floor just above my shoulders. 

Not when he went from hovering over me to letting me feel his weight along the length of my body. 

Not when his hair hung down and tickled my face until I swept it back with my hands and looked at him.

He was irrepressible and irresistible.

I wanted him.

And I had him.

For now.

We shared another moment. As we did. One that we could blame on the low light and how that must have been the thing that made his eyes appear bigger and deeper. Or how the earnestness of his gaze must a reflection of his mood more than his emotion. It had nothing to do with the story he told or of the pride in his voice when he spoke of me.

“Did you really think I was a little mouse?”

“Oh, my god. The cutest little mouse.”

“You didn’t,” I pouted and then he teased, “We should have called you _Ratinho_.”

“Nooooo,” I said. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Nah. Didn’t suit you.”

“No?”

“No,  _xodó._ No, no.”

“What’s that?” It sounded like a name someone might use for a hobbit: Shodo.

“Huh?”

“What’d you call me?”

“You don’t know this word? _Xodó_ is like um…sweetheart but it isn’t sweetheart,” he leaned up on his elbow and from the light streaming through the window, I could see a little frown. “How come you are allowed to get by with these little phrases of Portuguese? Anyone else in the house has to speak fluently. I’m going to teach you.”

“Okay,” I smiled, “I’m all yours. Teach me something.”

“You’re all mine?”

“I only meant…” I tried to explain before he touched his fingers to my mouth and interrupted, “You can’t take it back. I like it too much. You’re all mine. Yes, I’m going to teach you something. Are you ready?” 

I felt that thing again. The thing between us. That something that was more than chemistry and affection. It was a something (or was an everything?) that made me feel like whoever I was —no matter how temporary, no matter how imperfect — was enough. 

Wasn’t that just another way of saying I felt safe and cared for? To feel safe meant I could open to him. To feel cared for meant I could be close. Two things that were taken for granted by parents, guardians, friends, family, lovers, and even passersby who happened to have an astounding love for humanity, as something that would be taken and given freely and in equal measure. In truth, at least in my experience, of care and safety, of being open and being close, rarely co-existed.

And when they did, it wasn’t for long.

Now, having recognized this temporary summit, this instability, for what it was, I had a choice. I could deny myself. I could back off and decide that, since there was no future in it, there was no present as well. I could go back to whatever it was that made me uncomfortably comfortable. Then, thatwould be that. Conversely, I could spectacularly ruin my future by submitting, again and again, for the entirely of our remaining time together, to enjoy this _everything_ between us. Of course, I took it for granted that this experience would not likely be eclipsed.

Well.

The argument could be made that there wasn’t _really_ a choice at all. Or, that there was one but I’d made my decision before I showed up last week. Or, maybe I’d made it seven years ago when I first followed him from one room at the community center into the other. Or, maybe this afternoon when I said I wanted him to fuck me. Or, maybe it didn’t matter because the answer was _yes._ Further contemplation not required.

Except that’s what I did. It was one of my things. To make a decision and then stew on it endlessly. 

_Can I?_

_Yes._

_How about now?_

Or the answer to his last question: _Are you ready?_

“Depends,” I answered, “What are you going to teach me?” 

“No, no, Micah. Not you up here,” Dante explained and tapped my forehead with his index finger before he moved it to my chest, that place just left of center that I would put my own hand while I stood for the national anthem, “Here. This is where I meant. Are you listening?” 

“Yeah.”

We moved from the base of the couch onto the cushions where he proceeded to cover every inch of me with every type of caress made with every part of his body. He played the careful scientist as he tracked what happened if he rubbed me a certain way on my chest, on my belly, on my knee, on my toe. Which sounds I made when he licked the back of my knee, the valley of my back, the inside of my ear. How high I arched if he ran his teeth over the crest of my shoulder blade or the outside of my thigh or the protrusion on the inside of my ankle.

There was no rush because there was no time. 

There was no end game because I was his mission. 

I felt (and who said this?) _revered_. My neck was no stopping off place on the way to my dick. It was simply a neck. _My_ neck. Below the skin were nerves and tendons and muscles for him to get to know. Or know better. As if the only way he could know me intimately was to become intimate with a singular piece of me. 

Any piece of me. 

Every piece of me.

I loved the thought that he could know me entirely via a thorough examination of my navel. Conversely, it was only via a thorough examination of my navel that he could express the entirety of his feelings for me. 

If I were to gauge his feelings right now, in this very moment, I would say he might love me. That realization occurred only by neglecting the fact that I might love him back. And the fact that I might love him back could only happen because there was nothing for us beyond the end of August.

But it wasn’t the end of August; it was day seven of thirty one. Yet, here I was, bent over the couch, my knees propped wide, letting Dante do all the things it took a year for me to let the only other man who has touched me this way to do so.

Good lord, it felt good.

He moved smoothly and slowly, aware of the difference between the signs for him to calm me and the signs that told him I needed more. And when he entered me, he spoke to me the entire time. 

I was amazing. 

I was stunning. 

I was sexy.

I was, I was, I was. 

And then I was full with him. “You look incredible like this, stretched out on my cock _._ Micah. _Meu Deus_ ,” He was on his knees behind me with the front of his thighs lined up against the back of mine and he rubbed my belly with the warm, flat palm of his right hand and held me in the crook of my left hip with the other. 

“I have you, Micah.” Then he repeated, “ I have you.” 

Slowly, carefully, he moved.

His caresses continued, up and down my back, my legs, my arms, my hair and after a few moments, he gathered me up and held me from the behind, my back to his front, generously landing kisses anywhere his lips could reach. The flip of wrist he employed as he stroked me in time with his own thrusts. I felt, for a moment, as if I was an extension of him. Or, perhaps, if he was a part of me. 

Even more so when he sucked on the side of my neck like that. It would leave a mark. No question. But it also lit up the stars beneath my eyes. So much so that when I next looked around the room, I could hardly believe that my knees were supported by something so banal as a couch covered in microfiber, that my hands (when I bent forward again) grasped common wood with too many coats of paint. 

In the window, I could see him and the way his eyes followed his hand wherever it caressed me.

I had to see him, not some reflection. 

The next time he slipped into me, I was on my back with my legs splayed wide, my ankles in his hands, with him bent over me, his chest floated, his nipples coasted, his lips firmly attached — all to mine. And he wouldn’t let go because I asked him not to. 

That wasn’t the only thing I said. “I want you,” I told him. That wasn’t so bad, right? Besides, he knew that. He must have. How could he not? 

But then … I said I _needed_ him. And I didn’t just _say_ it either. I said it at the same time I levered myself up, when my wrapped my arms around his neck, when I planted my heels on the upper curve of his ass, and I writhed on his cock like a man possessed.

“ _Foda-se no meu pau,_ ” Dante gasped. He told me to fuck his dick. Or that he liked me fucking his dick. Whatever. They were just words. Gloriously dirty words that added to our soundtrack of the evening. I didn’t comprehend half of what he said. The same half, by the way, that were complemented by his moans and keens and grunts and heavy breathing, all of which were intensely satisfying. 

_“Meu Deus,”_ said Dante. _My god._ Followed by _,_ “ _Quero_ … _me fode gustoso._ ” Which might have meant something about the way I fucked him. He was right. I needed to learn more Portuguese. 

Dante took control again. He twisted me around on the sofa and clambered over me. My back pressed into the cushions. His shoulders pressed into the back of my knees. My hands gripped his hair. His limbs molded his body to mine in a way that left me stifled. 

But I didn’t want him to move away. Not him or his sweat or the breath that set fire to his neck because he had tucked his head into my shoulder while his hips continued to pump, deeply and heavily, into me.

“ _…te amo_ ,” he groaned and a very small, quiet part of my mind registered that he responded to the thing I said first, _I love you._

Dante whose hips shoved me backward when his entire body clenched over mine. Dante who kissed me when he came. The kiss was wet, sloppy, passionate assault and his tongue so deeply embedded in my mouth that I thought there was a good chance of he might be able to taste his own jizz.

I was so close. The itch to continue moving was maddening. I pleaded, “Don’t stop. Please, Dante,” and writhed helplessly against him. Though I knew from experience that he could no more move right now than I could whip up a souffle. 

Not that I wanted a souffle. 

I wanted to cum.

I was desperate for it.

And I jacked off relentlessly in hopes of making that happen soon. “Let me,” he offered and replaced my hand with his grip to jerk me with a light, fast resonance that he matched with his hips to skate just so over my p-spot. 

My hands sought purchase over his slick back while I threw my head backward only to bring it up again in a crunch to kiss him. He read me the entire time, discerning every squint and squeak and flutter. Warmth spread over my chest and face and grew redder and hotter until I seared in my own skin.

“Oh, Jesus…fuck,” I gasped. “Yes, like that…oh, god…just like that.” I was so close, so close, so close.

Until.

Finally.

The fireworks came.

They flashed from the base of my spine and shot through me until I could see them behind my closed eyelids. Cum spasmed out of me, first in one long rope that hit my shoulder and part of the cushion beside my head. The rest — along with a good portion of my brains — landed in hot splashes across my stomach. 

Dante was entranced.

He pulled out gently, got rid of the condom, and didn’t bother wiping us off before he leaned over to lie on me and to softly brush the sweat-slick hair from my forehead. “That was…my god, Micah.”

“Yeah.” 

That was my weak response. _Yeah._ I wasn’t capable of giving him more. Not at that moment, anyway.

“Let’s take a shower,” Dante suggested. He hoisted me up and held my hand for each one of the twenty feet we traversed to get to the bathroom. Under the water, we took turns. The one under the warm shower soaped up the one in the cool spray. And when we were done, we dried ourselves and each other, not quite finding the balance between being able to stop touching one another and being dry enough to climb in bed.

We had neighboring pillows and lay under a common sheet, curled toward one another, to talk about the day. Yesterday. The seventh of August. His twenty-third birthday. “I was so shocked when the door opened,” he admitted.

“You didn’t know? I really thought that you figured something out when we ducked into the garage.”

“No, no. I couldn’t figure it out. I thought maybe it was some new kinky thing you wanted all of a sudden.”

I lifted off my pillow, “ _That_ would be my new kinky thing? _That’s_ what you think of me? Oh, my god.”

He laughed, “Well, I never know, do I? You’re always surprising me.”

“No, I’m just me. That’s it. Nothing surprising.”

He was quiet for a moment. His face turned serious and he licked his lips before he said, “It’s okay, you know. I liked what you said.”

“But…” I looked to the ceiling but the words I had hoped to put together weren’t there. “I don’t know what it means…you know…for us.”

Dante scooted closer and wiggled his nose back and forth over mine. “It means that my lover gives me love. I like that.” He made it sound so simple. “I feel the same,” he said and nodded and kissed my nose before he continued to rub it side-to-side over mine. “I want you to say it. I want to hear it,” he mumbled, “Tell me again.”

I could barely hear the words come out of my mouth,  “I love you.”

But when he said it, the sound resonated throughout my body, “I love you, too.”


	5. Chapter 5

The light that streamed through the wall of sheer silvery-blue curtains woke us up with all the force of a late summer morning. Sweat pooled where our skin connected: my arm over his front, my front along his side, in the creases of our thighs and knees. And rather than the nice, clean sweat of a healthy workout after a shower, it was the dank, tangy, flaky residue that came from having gotten ten levels of worked up and being too lazy to do more than a cursory wipe down before relapsing into yet another nap.

Dante curled onto his side and smoothed the side of my hair with his fingertips. On the other side of the room, his phone dinged with a text message but he ignored it. “One week left,” he groused.

I joked, “Oh, my god. If I stayed any longer, it might kill me.” The truth was, if I stayed longer than a week, I’d never leave. Even though I needed to. For school. Plus, I still had to move out of Danny’s. Though that would probably only take half-an-hour to shuttle the boxes out of the closet downstairs into a car. I’d already thought about it longer than it would take to complete.

Back to the point. I couldn’t get attached to this thing happening with Dante, regardless of the circumstance. We agreed that we were just friends messing around. Good friends. He was having fun learning how to be with a guy and I was rebounding with someone safe.

That was it.

Dante scraped his teeth along his lower lip before he said, “Well, you’re the one being so rough.” And it was true. I tended to be zealous. He stopped twirling my hair long enough to press a series of soft, tiny kisses to my lips. When he leaned back again, the light caught his eyes in just the right way to turn them from their normal velvety brown to lively, three-dimensional striations in topaz and bronze. “What should we do with your last week, hm?”

I leveraged my elbow against the bed, crawled over him, and planted my hands on either side of his head, my thighs on top of his, and rolled my body back and forth over his. “Why do we have to do anything?”

“We don’t,” he teased, his hands wrapped around the nape of my neck to pull me to into another kiss, a deeper one this time. One that lead to his tongue teasing mine; his lips alternated between nibbling and grasping at mine. All of it was sweet and light and playful and lovely, a suite of tactile introductions played over and over with each repetition telling me, _I know you like this…and I know you like this…and I know you like this…_

Dante went on, “We’ll stay here [kiss] and fuck each other [gasp] until neither one of us can walk. Then [nibble] you’ll have to stay here [lick] with me for the rest of our short [kiss] lives since neither [suck] of us will be able to eat [lick] or sleep or [kiss] go to school or [nuzzle] get jobs.”

I was nuzzling the side of his neck when his phone pinged but when I started to maneuver away so that he could get it, Dante wrapped his arms and legs around my back. “Forget it,” he purred, “they can wait,” and he curled up to plant kisses along my collarbone. The sheets slid down my back when his hands wrapped around my rib cage and pulled me toward the wall so that he could mouth at my nipple in a way that made me shiver and break out in goosebumps.

We continued to make out with each other, too sore to do anything more strenuous, too lazy to do anything more energetic, too content to get out of bed to do anything more productive. He sat up and arranged me so that I was on his lap with my arms around his neck and my legs crossed behind him. His hands drifted over the entirety me, from my ears to my toes, from my spine to my bellybutton, with his fingertips and his palms and the flat of his nails.

That’s how we were until the sun moved overhead and our stomach’s protested and Dante’s phone pinged once again. He rubbed his nose back and forth over mine and reasoned in a low, husky voice, “You’d think if it was urgent and they knew me, they wouldn’t wait so long to try to reach me again. They’d be dialing up every minute like _where are you, where are you, where are you.”_

“Probably. Or they’d call. But,” I sighed, “maybe we should at least get-up, take a shower, have coffee…change the sheets.”

“Yeah?” he asked while he sucked on my bottom lip.

I smiled. “Nah.”

We got up anyway.

After we stripped the bed, Dante went to check his phone and make coffee. I ducked into the shower where I let the hot water sluice away my top layer of grime before I picked up the circle of oatmeal soap to attack the rest of it.

My flippant answer to the earlier question of how to spend this week needed re-addressing. This city was amazing and Dante hadn’t skimped on giving me an experience of it. First, the food. We had eaten for almost nothing at Chinese barbecue joints that were mostly taken up with hanging sides of pork and duck. Same for taquerias in the Mission.

Then, the entertainment. There was that last minute show we caught at an old school venue in Little Italy that had white table cloths and red velvet booths and stayed on the trolley while revealed new views of the lights of the city when we rose over the crest of each next hill. A few days later, we hit up the Castro, where we saw Hitchcock movie that opened with a Wurlitzer.

Dante attempted (again) to teach me how to surf and, this time, I did well enough to stand up. On another occasion, we walked around the ruins of the Sutro Baths with our jeans rolled up to our knees; we ate sandwiches while our feet were misted by the spray off the odd cement block we sat above. He held my hand as we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, kissed me while we looked over Market Street from the top of Twin Peaks, and blew me through a glory hole at some place near Folsom.

I stood in the steam of the shower contemplating how I might thank him for giving me these three weeks, how I might surprise him with something more memorable than a night out when there was a polite knock on the door. Dante came in and placed a stack of clothes on the top of the toilet seat. “We have some visitors,” he said with his lips turned down in what looked like chagrin. “Just…uh…come out when you’re ready, I guess.”

“Who is it?”

He didn’t answer me; he just shook his head and walked back out the door, shutting it firmly behind him. Once the shower was off, I could hear male and female voices chatter away behind the door in tones that wouldn’t accompany bad news. I took my time to towel off and get dressed in hopes of overhearing something that would give me a clue to Dante’s mood. But there was nothing. Eventually, I had to give up and open the bathroom door to meet our visitors.

Bernadette and  Júnior sat at the kitchen table with mugs in their hands and regaled Dante with tales of their trip so far, including how many jealous calls and texts have been received from Bernie’s current boyfriend. “He just knows how much she wants me,” bragged Júnior.

“In your dreams,” rebuked Bernie and gave him side eye, which evoked Júnior’s bashful smile and told me he still pined after her. Just as he’s done since he met her at my house all those years ago. “John’s not a bad guy. You just need to get to know him better.”

“Nah,” Júnior quipped. “I don’t need to get to know him. I’m gonna be that friend that’s all yours so when you get pissed at him you can call me up and I’ll bring the one to bring you ice cream and wine coolers.”

“Hey guys, this is a surprise,” I proclaimed and emerged from the steamy doorway to make a tight u-turn into the kitchen when I saw small, forlorn figure on my right who stood in front of the couch and looked out the window beyond the dunes toward the horizon. 

“Danny?” I asked.

He turned halfway and before I could see his face, he turned to face the window again.

Dante appeared in front of me and handed me two short, steaming cups of black coffee. His look broadcast how much things between us had just changed. The vibe between us less than half an hour ago when I had simultaneously soaked him up and melted into him had already transformed into something distant and solid and lonely. He nodded toward Danny to indicate where I should have been paying attention. Then he went back into the kitchen to hang out with Bernie and Júnior and I heard him say, “You guys hungry? There’s a decent diner a block south of here.”

In the background, Bernie assented and added something about giving us space.

I walked to Danny.

“Hey,” I warbled on the single syllable, unsure of why he was here, what he wanted and why Bernadette Walker was clued up on why Danny and I might need space when the two of us been broken up for four or five months already. 

Then I saw him.

“Jesus, Danny. What happened to you?” The man in front of me was a skeleton. It wasn’t obvious from the back but his skinny jeans, usually a second skin, hung off him and stayed on for the grace of a cinched belt that caused the waistband to buckle in on itself. His cheekbones, beautiful and high, protruded unnaturally and his skin, normally so smooth and well cared for, sagged as if he’d aged twenty years. 

He swiped a quick tear away with the flat of his hand, licked his lip and set his jaw to regain composure. His voice caught when he spoke, “I don’t even know what to say to you right now.”

I’d never seen him looking so fragile and couldn’t deny that, despite any lingering hurt and anger, I very badly wanted to care for him, to help him recover, to make him better. But that didn’t explain why he was here and why he was in this shape in the first place. “When is the last time you’ve eaten anything?”

“ _That’s_ the first…” he huffed and stopped himself, his eyes were wide with incredulity.

“Yes. Because that’s the first thing I can think of when I look at you. What should I ask instead?” I asked in an impatient whisper as I leaned forward. “If you don’t like that one, how about what do you want from me?”

The shuffling of feet and the gentle click of the front door that told me that Danny and I were alone.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t be here. You made it clear that you didn’t care about me anymore so…fuck it, I’ll just go.”

I stood in his path, moving right or left to block him as he tried to get around me. “You must have been in the damn car for nine or ten hours to get here so don’t leave without saying whatever you came to say, okay?”

“Why?” He finally looked at me with deep blue eyes that were filled to the brim until his blink pinched off a set of tears that ran down his face only to be quickly wiped away again. “You haven’t wanted to talk to me for months, why would you now. Huh? What’s changed? Oh, maybe that you’re with someone else now.”

“We aren’t together.”

“I don’t know who you think you’re fooling, Micah. It reeks in here.”

An offended puff of air escaped me. I reached over the couch and under the curtain to undo the window latch and press against the glass to invite in some fresher smells. I did the same to the window on the far side of the wall and swept the room with Danny’s eyes — at the bed (now stripped), the wall with tilted photo frames, all along the couch, the kitchen counter, several of the chairs, and all the other places that now felt profaned for for being witnessed.

I tried again. “Danny…why are you here?” It took all summer to get him out of my system and within minutes he’s back under my skin.

I can’t be next to him without him affecting me somehow. It’s always been like that. My annoyance was new. As was my irritation. But not the part where I wanted to make him happy, and would happily do all he’d asked of me.

He crossed his arms, looked at the wall behind me and, licking his lips, sighed before blurting out, “I want you to come home, okay?” The tears came more freely when he looked at me. “Just…come home,” he pleaded. “It’s not the same without you. I need you there. I just do.”

“Oh, what…you want to be boyfriends again?”

“Whatever you want. We can be boyfriends. We can be anything you want as long as you come home.”

That was hardly a ringing endorsement for being together. “What do you mean _whatever I want_? That’s not how this works. Do you want to be with me or not?”

“I want…Micah, I don’t even know how to describe what I want. I can say I love you. I can say I’ve missed you like I didn’t even know it was possible to miss somebody. You’re…like…the other piece of me. And I know that sounds like some weird, co-dependent crazy shit but it’s true. Nothing is the same without you. I don’t know…maybe, I fucked up…no, I definitely fucked up…but if you come back, we can figure the rest out.”

The message would have come across so differently four months ago. Four months? What was I saying? Even one month ago.

_Dante and I are NOT together._

And what would that matter? I had to go back anyway. Staying the extra week would only prolong the inevitable. Danny needed help. Whether we were friends or lovers or something else entirely, he was not doing well and, for everything he’s ever done for me, nursing him back to health was the least I could do. “How did you plan on getting back home?”

“Huh?”

“When you got a lift up here, you must have known that once Júnior dropped Bernie off at Cal, he would continue up to Davis and stay there. Did you figure out how you’d get home?”

“No.”

“When’s your next shift?”

“Tomorrow at three.”

The computer that Dante had given me a login for was in the kitchen. I pulled up information on prohibitively expensive flights, non-existent trains, and a bus that would have us leave either in just over two hours — which would get us home in time for a decent sleep — or leaving in nine hours — to get home in time for a two hour nap before he had to show up for his shift.

If we were going to do this, we had to leave now.

No. There was no _if._

I rummaged through the laundry and while I pulled out my clothes to stuff them in either one of my two bags, I reminded myself that in a week, I’d have to do the same thing.

What did a week matter, anyway?

Danny stood against the arch that linked the living room to the kitchen with a newfound defiance. “Micah, don’t stomp around and hate me. You have a choice, alright? I want you to come home but if you want to be here, you should stay here.” The circles under his eyes were clouds of red and purple.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Well, how _do_ you feel?”

“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out, I guess.”

“Oh, great. Well, that’s _exactly_ what I want to hear, isn’t? _Thanks Danny for coming all this way to tell me that you want me to come home but it’s not like I give a shit or miss you or want to come home even though I’m doing it for you._ Really? Is that what it’s going to be like?”

“No,” I explained with poorly feigned patience while I continued to look around Dante’s place to see what I may have forgotten, “I didn’t exactly know this was coming and I’m trying to handle this best I can. I _care_ , Danny. Of course, I do. I just…didn’t expect this.”

This was so stupid. I was being so stupid. How could I be such a shit head when clearly he was in so much pain? I sighed, walked over to where he stood, and bent my head to put my forehead on his shoulder. My arms wrapped around him; his found their way around me, too. “I’m sorry, Danny.”

He nodded into my chest. “Me, too.”

“Come on. We should go.”

“What about your friend?”

“I’ll stop on the way to talk to him,” I said.

I was numb when I closed the door behind me and barely processed getting in and out of the elevator, passing through the security gate on the outside of the complex, or walking to the diner where I could see the three of them sitting several tables back from the window.

We went in and Dante clocked me right away. Me and my bag. He got up and walked toward me.

I barely heard Danny say, “I’ll hang out with Bernie and Júnior for a minute.” 

Dante led the way back out the door and to the side of the building where we wouldn’t be seen. We were side-by-side with our respective backs against the concrete wall and looked across the street at the tall, grassy dunes. “You’re going,” he said. Not a question. Not a surprise, either.

“I have to.”

“Do you?” He asked. I could neither read his meaning nor his mood. 

Besides — I took a deep breath — what were my options? “I think so. What would you do? If you were me, I mean.”

“I don’t know, man.”

We were silent while I mulled over all the things I wanted to say but felt I couldn’t. _Ask me to stay. Say this meant something to you. Tell me that you’ve never felt anything like this. That you want this for more than the time we’ve had. That you’ve pictured this happening between us and that it was better in real life than in your head._

“Dante, I don’t even know what Danny wants.”

“What do you want?”

_You._

But I didn’t say that. 

Instead, I said, “You know how they say that some people come into your life to be there forever? I think that…whatever he and I are to each other…he’s one of those people. I want to take care of him the way he took care of me, you know? Not ‘cause I owe him or anything. I just want to. I want him to be okay.”

“Okay,” Dante relented. 

If I were a different man, a braver one, I would kiss him. I would place my palms on the edge of his jaw with my fingers skirting the loose curls that hung over his ears and I would tilt my head up, pressing his lips open with mine to taste him one more time. Then I’d have to do it again because I didn’t like the idea of knowing it would be the last time. Before I knew it, there would be kisses, like turtles, all the way down and I’d be back to never leaving.

“Dante?”

“Yeah.”

“It feels wrong to say thank you but…thank you. This has been _so_ amazing,” I told him, aware of the tears welling up and of the swelling in my lips that proceeded their tremble. “I wish I had the words to say it better, you know?”

“I’m glad you came.” His gaze was steadfast upon the horizon.

“Me, too,” I added awkwardly. “You’ll still be home for the holidays, won’t you?”

“Uh. Yeah? Maybe? It depends on my mom. I haven’t seen her for a while.”

“Will you…uh. Will you call me if you visit?”

“Sure thing,” he said and pushed off the wall.

“Hey,” I said and pulled him into a bear hug. At first, he was reticent. Eventually, he gave in and embraced me just as hard as I embraced him. It felt, just for a second, that Dante didn’t want to let me go either.

“Say goodbye to Bernie and Junior for me?” I asked and he agreed and I handed him his house keys and the travel pass, just in case he knew someone that could use it. 

That was it.

I went into autopilot. 

Danny and I took the L-Taraval to Embarcadero. From there, we walked down Main to Folsom and stopped somewhere along the way to get food and drink for the journey. Then we waited at the bus depot until it was time to board.

I gave Danny the window seat. Not because I was nice. And not because I’d seen enough of San Francisco but because I couldn’t bear to see any more of it.


End file.
